US Bars Five Europeans It Says Pressured Tech Firms To Censor American Viewpoints Online (apnews.com)
- Reference: 0180448257
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/12/24/0319202/us-bars-five-europeans-it-says-pressured-tech-firms-to-censor-american-viewpoints-online
- Source link: https://apnews.com/article/state-department-trump-immigration-rubio-visas-87c8a4692f3184e4f83fdd8ed5093886
> The State Department announced Tuesday it was barring five Europeans it accused of [1]leading efforts to pressure U.S. tech firms to censor or suppress American viewpoints . The Europeans, characterized by Secretary of State Marco Rubio as "radical" activists and "weaponized" nongovernmental organizations, fell afoul of a [2]new visa policy announced in May to restrict the entry of foreigners deemed responsible for censorship of protected speech in the United States. "For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose," Rubio posted on X. "The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship."
>
> The five Europeans were identified by Sarah Rogers, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, in a series of posts on social media. [...] The five Europeans named by Rogers are: Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate; Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, leaders of HateAid, a German organization; Clare Melford, who runs the Global Disinformation Index; and former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, who was responsible for digital affairs. Rogers in her post on X called Breton, a French business executive and former finance minister, the "mastermind" behind the EU's Digital Services Act, which imposes a set of strict requirements designed to keep internet users safe online. This includes flagging harmful or illegal content like hate speech. She referred to Breton warning Musk of a possible "amplification of harmful content" by broadcasting his livestream interview with Trump in August 2024 when he was running for president.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/state-department-trump-immigration-rubio-visas-87c8a4692f3184e4f83fdd8ed5093886
[2] https://www.state.gov/announcement-of-a-visa-restriction-policy-targeting-foreign-nationals-who-censor-americans
One more step alienating the USA from EU (world?) (Score:3)
And three more steps away from trusting and reconnecting to the USA if and when Republicans are no longer in control.
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> And three more steps away from trusting and reconnecting to the USA if and when Republicans are no longer in control.
If.
There's no sign that the Republican party or right-leaning citizens of the country are interested in ever hearing from, compromising with, or being led by civilized people in the future.
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The "and when" is for a hopeful (but still unexpected) positive outcome eventually some time in the future.
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> And three more steps away from trusting and reconnecting to the USA if and when Republicans are no longer in control.
You mean when it's possible for them to be in control? Because no one will ever trust us again as long as they might get control again. Democrats were bad enough but at least they tend to obey treaties and keep agreements with other nations.
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Well, at least they pretended to, and claimed in press releases that they did, but no part of drone strikes, torture, extra-judicial killings, or destruction of civilian infrastructure outside of war zones abides by the Geneva Conventions.
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Transactionalism: managing the fallout from having no diplomacy one issue at a time.
US cannot afford to sponsor EU (world) (Score:2)
While US had tremendous luck in post-WW2 era and accumulated unprecedented wealth, since then a lot of it was drained/wasted. If we learn from lessons of USSR collapse, trying to finance Warsaw Pact countries is what brought Soviet economy to ruin. Which was one of the key contributing factors to USSR dissolution.
If US stays on the current trajectory it will go bankrupt. No more wars. No more paying for military protection of EU/NATO countries.
Re:US cannot afford to sponsor EU (world) (Score:4, Informative)
> The US was the only one profiting from Russia's invasion.
This is completely disconnected from reality. [1]How much have Europe and the US given to Ukraine? [bbc.com]. US taxpayers contributed HUNDREDS of BILLIONS to Ukraine, with some of it getting [2]embezzled by Ukrainian politicians [bbc.com].
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crew8y7pwd5o
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8vw62j3g9o
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> The US spent a total of $130.6bn (£98bn) between 24 January 2022 and 31 August 2025
So less than $40B per year? For comparison that is 1/10 of what Trump's tax cut's cost us every year ($4T over 10 years)
Also I do enjoy how your second story is only a story because the people who did it are being charged by Ukrainian prosecutors.
"Reading the article" vs Republicans remains undefeated.
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Now talk about Israel and Egypt.
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It is nit the EU that gets isolated. It is the US.
What's the problem? (Score:2)
If you're on someone else's platform, you have no right to free speech anyway
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That is not quite true. Even if stated frequently.
The trumpistan is now the enemy of the free world (Score:4, Insightful)
Aligned itself with russia on Ukraine, with china on Taiwan, with the monopolists on the rule of law.
Good luck taking on your real enemies without your former allies, dumbasses.
There is no 'freedom' in Globalism (Score:2, Interesting)
What free world would that be? UK that [1]jails people for online posting [forbes.com], Australia that [2]went all in on "papers please" [digitalidsystem.gov.au] just to post online, or [3]EU that cancels elections [jurist.org] or [4]bars opposition [bbc.com] when it becomes clear 'wrong' candidate going to win?
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2025/09/09/people-are-being-thrown-in-uk-prisons-over-what-theyve-said-online-can-free-speech-be-saved/
[2] https://www.digitalidsystem.gov.au/what-is-digital-id/digital-id-act-2024
[3] https://www.jurist.org/news/2025/01/council-of-europe-determines-legal-standards-for-invalidating-elections-following-romania-court-ruling/
[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cwyewv8xdp7t
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Your attempt at propaganda is inept and boring, darling.
Moron Le Pen isn't barred, she's in jail for theft.
EU has not "cancelled elections" and nothing in the link you provide is an evidence thereof.
Dunno what Brexitannia and Australia have to do with the EU. Perhaps you can enlighten us.
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> she's in jail for theft.
Sadly, she isn't. Lenient laws and lenient enforcement still allow corrupt politicians to avoid jail, just like the pedophile rapist of trumpistan.
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1) You cite the Council of Europe. It isn't the EU and doesn't have executive power; it's a discussion assembly, a regional equivalent to the UN. It can't cancel an election. Romania did; the EU has no say in the matter.
2) I will summarize it for you, it's a case of foreign interference in a Presidential election. (We talked about it [1]https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org])
1. Two weeks before Presidential election in Romania, hundreds of Romanian tiktokers receive an offer for 1000 € to repost a professional
[1] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/17/230211/eu-opens-investigation-into-tiktok-over-election-interference
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I categorically disagree that what happening in Romania is acceptable in a Western society. In your explanation you are presupposing that individual voters cannot be trusted to make up their mind in face of slightest attempt at manipulation. The logical next step is to not allow "unapproved" people to vote.
I can think of some extreme cases, if malicious lies were spread, but that is not what happened in Romania. My view is that elections did not go "approved" way and what you described was used as a prete
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The problem was foreign money (obscurely) funding a campaign. This is as well would be disallowed in the USA.
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> The problem was foreign money (obscurely) funding a campaign.
That would be a problem if you can prove coordination with the candidate's campaign. Otherwise you can see how that would be abused, where a foreign entity would take up some ads supporting a candidate, then leak information about that to disqualify that candidate. From what I know about the case, there was no proof of coordination. That is, foreign funding was a pretext.
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You are veeeeery disconnected from the real world. The real world needs limits on propaganda and manipulation of public opinion.
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You either have no clue what you are talking about or you are maliciously pushing propaganda intended to harm. My guess is the latter.
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> Good luck taking on your real enemies without your former allies, dumbasses.
lol- cope harder.
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LOL, the Dunning-Kruger case striketh again :)
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You continually misuse that term. The irony truly is chef's kiss.
You really just aren't a very intelligent person, are you?
And yet (Score:4, Interesting)
Go on Truth Social and post a comment that Trump is a rapist and a pedophile and see how fast your post gets removed.
For the record, Trump is mentioned alongside Epstein as [1]being accused of rape in a 2020 FBI file [thedailybeast.com], 50D-NY-3027571. Among [2]other things [time.com].
[1] https://www.thedailybeast.com/epstein-files-reveal-bombshell-fbi-tip-about-trump//
[2] https://time.com/7342332/trump-epstein-files-release-latest-maxwell/
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Anybody can make accusations. That doesn't mean it's true.
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Yeah, that's the tricky thing about "free speech". It cuts both ways, and the only way to respect it is to allow people to say things that you might not agree with. You can disagree and try to rebut their arguments as much as you like because of those same "rules", but all censoring them does is demonstrate that you have actually no respect for the right to free speech you keep bleating about and don't deserve any respect in return.
It's similar for a lot of the "inclusive" ideologies too for that matte
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Then I suppose you're upset at how the government is dragging its feet about releasing the Epstein files. Not only is that censorship, but it violates a law passed overwhelmingly by both houses in Congress.
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It's similar for a lot of the "inclusive" ideologies too for that matter. You can't be truly inclusive unless you also accept the views of those who hate you for what you are or do, no matter how reprehensible they might be.
That is similar to what Charlie Kirk once said, "You need to be open minded, but firm in your beliefs."
If you're firm in your beliefs, you're not open minded.
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> Go on Truth Social and post a comment that Trump is a rapist and a pedophile and see how fast your post gets removed.
Calling Trump a pedophile over association with Epstein is guilt by association, which is fallacy. Also, by that standard Chomsky, Clinton, and Dershowitz are in the same boat and I don't see you applying that equally. Calling Trump rapist over sexual misconduct allegations is also a huge stretch even if you agree (which I don't) that uncorroborated 20+ year allegations litigated in a civil court (at lower burden of proof) were true. So yes, such malicious post would get removed for being politically motiva
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Yeah, a couple of dozen women all accusing him of the same thing, none of whom had any financial motivation to do so, is just coincidence and TDS. /s
SMDH
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In May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. From there, it's not a "huge" stretch to rape. The jury was just unable to come to a verdict on that stronger charge. From Wikipedia:
> Carroll's accusation against Trump was more severe than the accusations made by other women. Regarding the jury verdict, the judge asked the jury to find if the preponderance of the evidence suggested that Trump raped Carroll under New York's narrow legal definition of rape at that time, denoting forcible penetration with the penis, as alleged by the plaintiff; the jury did not find Trump liable for rape and instead found him liable for a lesser degree of sexual abuse. In July 2023, Judge Kaplan said that the verdict found that Trump had raped Carroll according to the common definition of the word, i.e. not necessarily implying penile penetration.[e] In August 2023, Kaplan dismissed a countersuit and wrote that Carroll's accusation of rape is "substantially true".
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I was not on that jury, but from what I read about Jean Carroll case it is clearly political hit job. An incident from mid-90s with no witnesses, no police report, and nothing coming out during MeToo era only to be brought up to be timed to land around election times? At the very least you have to admit that timing is highly suspicious.
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She has the blue dress with what she says is his DNA on it. However, he's been too busy playing golf to take a 10 second cheek swab for comparison.
Funny how someone completely innocent would do that.
Oh, the irony (Score:2)
It's pretty ironic that the US gets pissed at this when Bari Weiss is in hot water for burying a 60 minutes news story that the administration didn't like.
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There are two issues with the 60 Minutes story. First, as you said, she's been accussed of burying the story by claiming there was nothing new AND that the administration hadn't responded to a request for comment.
The second issue is the whiner in chief wants the people who complained to Weiss about burying the story to be fired because . . . they complained about the story being buried.
No, really. That is the argument being used. Because the people who went to all the effort to create the story are upset at
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I don't particularly "believe" anyone in this story 100%. But your idea that I should just believe this other supposed source of information that you have, because you say, 'trust me bro', is a little nonsensical. All any of us can do is try to gather information from varied sources and then run it through our own filter of experience and weigh the probabilities and come to a "most likely" situation. I would never say that Bari Weiss absolutely positively 100% buried the story because she's biased toward
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> she's pulled the story because the "journalists" flat out lied about the administration. They claimed the administration refused to be interviewed or provide a statement and gave that reason for their shit report having no response from the administration. The truth is 3 different departments responded directly to interview questions and separately provided a 300+ word written statement.
Please stop ruining the narrative with your malinformation.
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The irony is how quickly conservatives started treating CBS as Fox:2 instead of the "mainstream media" and now bend their asses all the over for something that if it was done under Obama or Biden would be absolutely livid. Now all of a sudden you've found the well of nuance.
I'd point out how shameless it all is but you are all so far past that you're in a universe where shame ceases to function.
Nothing says restoring trust in media like the government installing "bias monitors" at news agencies. Good luck
Re:Who am I supposed to root for again? (Score:4, Insightful)
> Europe never really understood "freedom" as it is understood here.
You don't have freedom in the USA. You have the highest number of people in prison both per capita and absolute numbers. You constantly live in fear of other Americans with guns. Your kids have to learn drills to deal with mass shooters. Then there's a whole raft of "won't someone think of the chiilllldruuun" censorship laws that the US brought in long before any other nation....
Re: Who am I supposed to root for again? (Score:2)
The UK arrests imprisons people for incitement to riot, not mean tweets.
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> The UK arrests imprisons people for incitement to riot, not mean tweets.
False:
[1]https://www.bbc.com/news/artic... [bbc.com]
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2922w73e1o
Re: Who am I supposed to root for again? (Score:2)
Yeah the UK is almost as unfree as the US.
[1]https://arstechnica.com/tech-p... [arstechnica.com]
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/man-sues-cops-who-jailed-him-for-37-days-for-trolling-a-charlie-kirk-vigil/
Re:Who am I supposed to root for again? (Score:5, Interesting)
The EU's take on free speech and freedom in general shows a deeper understanding of freedom than any country has ever shown in the world. Freedom is not just free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and so on, individually. With freedom comes responsibility and the rights and freedoms of one person should never violate those same freedoms of others. That implies there has to be a balance between all the different kinds of freedoms as well as all the different kinds of fundamental human rights.
Freedom of speech means nothing if it violates others' freedom of religion. Freedom of religion means nothing if it preaches hate agains people who think differently or compels its followers to kill them. Freedom of the press means nothing if it leads to social media being overwhelmed by desinformation. To name just a few.
That does not mean there cannot be any grey areas. Sometimes the perception of a thing is not the reality of a thing. If a person feels their rights and/or freedoms have been violated, they can take it up to court and let the judge (or in some EU countries a jury) make a ruling on the matter.
Re: Who am I supposed to root for again? (Score:3)
The US never understood to be liberal, educated, or free. Instead just repeating nonsense propaganda
I would put that in my CV (Score:2)
If I was one of those five people.
It's a badge of honor to be targeted by a fascist regime.
Badge of honors (Score:1)
Being banned by the fascist fuckers running the USA today is actually a badge of honor.
Once again, not censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
When individuals or companies refuse to promote your viewpoints that is called free speech. They have the right to not only disagree with you, not only tell you their own opinion, but also to refuse to aid you in spreading your view.
Censorship ONLY applies to governments that prevent you from speaking and/or prevent others from spreading your views.
When a government punishes you for not spreading their view THEY are the ones that are doing censorship.
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> Censorship ONLY applies to governments that prevent you from speaking and/or prevent others from spreading your views.
This is not at all the case. Anyone can partake in censorship. It is by no means the sole province of the state.
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>> Censorship ONLY applies to governments that prevent you from speaking and/or prevent others from spreading your views.
> This is not at all the case. Anyone can partake in censorship. It is by no means the sole province of the state.
When a non-government entity restricts your speech on a platform it controls, you might want to call it censorship, but it's actually just that entity exercising its own free-speech rights. You can still find another platform. You can't if the government is imposing the restriction.
The King (Score:2)
You may be the King of a country, but You can not be the King of the whole world.
We should build that wall for Trump (Score:2)
All round the US about 2 miles high and shoot anything that comes out\over\under it,
When did Hate become an American value? (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of the barred are targeted because they work against hate speech, so this looks like the trump administration believes hate is an American value. That's disgusting. Hate never made America great.
The Republicans sure are looking like the party of hate, and little else.
No such thing as hate speech (Score:2)
There is no need for freedom of speech if everyone agrees. It is only needed when people in power hate what you say. Incitement to immediate violence is already illegal, anything else is a free speech.
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> There is no need for freedom of speech if everyone agrees. I
That statement is nonsense. It does work the other way round though: "If everybody agrees, there is no freedom of speech". But I guess you are one of those that does not understand what an implication is and that direction does matter.
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Your argument is nonsense. To demonstrate: All apples are fruit. All fruit are not only apples.
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Incitement to immediate violence is already illegal, anything else is a free speech.
Incitement of insurrection used to be illegal too, unless Republicans vote to ignore it.
Pot Calling Kettle (Score:2)
> efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose,
Black! Black! Black!
"Pressured"? (Score:2)
These must be very mighty individuals instead if they can just "pressure" US tech firms! Or maybe they just contribute to the law being applied?
Why does US care what EU censors? (Score:1)
Is the US viewpoint the "only true viewpoint" for the entire world?
Will it be fine if EU starts demanding that particular European views to be propagated within the US?
Re:Why does US care what EU censors? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not even about the EU censoring anything. The only one from EU (the government part) is former commissioner Thierry Breton, who isn't barred for censorship (was never part of his duty), but for overseeing lawmaking and regulatory processes that Trump sees as unfavourable to US companies (e.g. Digital Markets and Digital Services Acts, the ones regularly called against practices of Apple or Meta). The others are heads of non-governmental organisations, i.e. not the EU by definition, and not doing censorship, though exercising their own free speech and defending their opinions (e.g. against fake news, against hate speech).
Re:Why does US care what EU censors? (Score:4, Insightful)
These are NGOs. It's their right to call "hate speech" or "fake news" whatever they don't like. Free speech works both ways.
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> Free speech works both ways.
Authoritarianism and Fascism does not.
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> Moral police... that's pure authoritarianism.
It's not police and it's not authoritarianism because these require to be operated by a government body. Case in point are private associations who voice opinions.
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Indeed. It is always the same defectives that want unlimited power over others and it is always the same deranged approach of trying to redefine reality. Unless and until we can prevent these crappy and malicious people from ever getting power, this will continue.
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The EU does not censor. The EU, like the US and many other nations, does remove illegal speech after it has been published. Censoring means all public speech has to be submitted for review beforehand and some things will be suppressed.